Create a Brand That Inspires: How to Sell, Organize and Sustain Internal Branding

Contents

Preface

Introduction Internal Branding’s Evolution

Section I Selling Internal Branding to Your Organization

Chapter 1 Branding Your Organization in an Online World

The Need for New Brand Constructs

People Make the Difference

Business-to-Business Branding Is as Important as Consumer Branding

Key Measures of Effectiveness

Case Study: Encouraging Employee Brand Action [Ballard Power Systems]

Chapter 2 Understanding Internal Branding

The Brand Promise and How to Keep It

Brands Are About Becoming and Being

Box 1—The Process of Becoming

Five Components of an Internal Branding Initiative

Brand Tools

Culture and Leadership

Brand Management

The Change Plan

Brand Measurement

Case Study: Living by Cultural Norms [The Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts]

Chapter 3 Selling Internal Branding to Your Senior Team

Box 2—The Warning Signs of a Weak Brand

Begin with the Basics

Internal Branding Creates Sustainable Success

Internal Branding Creates Value-Centric Employees

Internal Branding Turns Corporate Culture into an Organizational Asset

Internal Branding Paves the Way to Market Leadership

Case Study: Employees as the Brand Difference [The Beryl Companies]

Chapter 4 Branding the Organization

Start with Tools That Explain and Train

Box 3—Brand Tools Criteria

Aligning Internal Branding with Strategy and Offerings

Internal Branding Leverage Points

Experience with Your Goods and Services

The Brand Promise

Corporate Culture

Sub-Brand Definition

Brand Touchpoints

Internal and External Branding Processes

The Employee Experience

Case Study: Tying Senior Management Action to Brand Results [REM Medical]

REM Medical’s Brand Tools

Integrated Brand and the REM Medical Strategic Plan

Chapter 5 The Rise of the Employee Ambassador

Employees, Public Opinion, and Brand Communities

The Decline of Credible Information

Developing an Employee Brand Community

The Cultural Experience: A Prerequisite for Effective Ambassadors

Skills for Effective Brand Ambassadors

Brand Promise

Business Direction

Personal Stories

Box 4—A Brand Community Checklist

Case Study: Using Employee Storytelling to Bring Your Brand to Life [Medtronic]

Chapter 6 Building Organizational Cultures That Build Competitive Advantage

What Behaviors Should You Adopt?

Base Behaviors on the Facts

Refining Culture to Be More Effective

Case Study: Making a City Extraordinary through Internal Branding [City of Olympia Public Works]

Training

Communications

Hiring

Measurement

Section II Organizing Internal Branding

Chapter 7 Integrating Internal Branding into the Organization

Box 5—Attributes of Brand Management

Sponsors and Owners

Brand Managers and Brand Teams

Actionable Benchmarks and Reporting

Value

Performance

Brand Equity

Case Study: Forging a Worldwide Brand Experience [DHL]

Decisions Around Internal Branding

Refining the Brand

Chapter 8 Defining the CEO Role

Internal Branding as a Core CEO Function

The Implications of Shifting Brand Management from Tactical to Strategic

Defining the CEO’s Management Style

Aligning with the CEO’s Personality

Box 6—CEO Brand Mindset Necessities

The CEO’s Role with Senior Management

Case Study: The CEO Builds a Brand from the Ground Up [Nestlé Nespresso]

Chapter 9 Using Brand Architecture to Focus Your Internal Branding

What Is Brand Architecture?

Brand Architecture Clarifies Product Delivery for Employees and Customers

Box 7—Brand Architecture Lexicon

Build Master Brand Value

Box 8—Examples of Strategic Roles

Case Study: Using a Master Brand to Do the Heavy Lifting [Group Health]

Box 9—Group Health Brand Architecture

Chapter 10 Creating Understandable and Compelling Brand Strategies

The Importance of the Strategic Role

From Strategic Role to Brand Strategies

Case Study: Staying True to Your Brand Strategy [Mayo Clinic]

Strategic Role Established by First Leaders

Integrated Internal Branding

Measures of Success

Chapter 11 Creating an Employee Culture That Builds Your Brand Community

The Shared Brand Community

What Is a Social Brand?

From Telling to Talking

Trust Your Employees: Make Guidelines Rather Than Rules

Add Person-to-Person to B2B and B2C

Box 10—IBM Blog Guidelines

Building a Brand Community

Collaboration to Build Relationships

Focusing the Internal Culture

Box 11—Getting Started: Building an Online Brand Community

Case Study: A Brand Two-Step: Zappos’ Cultural Journey to Online Expression [Zappos.com]

Chapter 12 Developing Employee Brand Ambassadors

Box 12—Employee Brand Benefits Explained

The Role of Human Resources

Who Is an Ideal Employee?

Box 13—Brand-based Hiring Checklist

What Are Best Practices for a Brand-Based Hiring Experience?

Case Study: Motivating Employee Associates [Health New England]

The HNE Brand Ambassador Card

Chapter 13 Rewarding the Moment of Truth

The First-Day Experience

Cultural Norms

Strategic Role

Brand-Based Incentives

Case Study: Transforming the Moment of Truth [Infosys]

Leveraging Word-of-Mouth Referrals

Bonding Through Extensive Early Training

Chapter 14 Translating Brand Tools into Operational Reality

The Principles behind Cascading Brand Knowledge

Principle 1: You Need a Brand to Be Successful Long-Term

Principle 2: High Quality Is Not a Substitute for Acting On-Brand

Principle 3: To Understand a Brand You Need to Use It

Principle 4: Become a Culture of Brand-Telling

Principle 5: Celebrate Progress

CEO Brand Management Infrastructure

Turf Wars

Infrastructure That Supports Brand

Branding Within Facilities: AAA Northern California, Nevada, and Utah

Translating Brand Tools into Infrastructure

Case Study: Paying Attention to the Details [Forrester Research]

Brand Positioning and Communications Strategy

Internal Branding That’s Baked In

Brand Orientation

Mentorship and Feedback

Knowledge Leadership

Event Infrastructure

Office Design

Section III Sustaining Your Brand

Chapter 15 Internal Branding Measurement

Box 14—Internal Branding Measurement Checkpoints

What to Measure

Brand Equity

Brand Tool Understanding and Application

Value Versus Performance

Brand Assets

Case Study: Measuring a Global Brand Powerhouse [Henkel]

Chapter 16 Surviving the Visionary

Guide Elements

The CEO’s Personal Brand Perspective

The New CEO and the Old Brand

Leveraging Internal Visionaries

Succession Done Well

Case Study: The Rise and Fall of a German Mail Order Giant [Quelle]

Chapter 17 The Future Is for the Agile

Internal Branding Best Practices Revisited

Use Your Strategic Role for Business Planning

Restore the Strategic Vision . . . Often

Share Brand Development

Internalize Change Principles

Network, Network, Network

What Are You Doing Right Now?

Glossary

Bibliography

About the Authors

About the Book

To William Rodgers for inspiring us through his leadership and editorial recommendations.

William Rodgers received his master of science in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and served on the research staff at Harvard Business School while doing doctoral work in marketing. He was president of Hamilton Consultants of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a marketing strategy consultancy with an emphasis on brand consulting and affiliated with a number of well-known marketing professors at leading US business schools such as Tuck School, Harvard, Wharton, and Northwestern University. William Rodgers died on March 19, 2009, in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Preface

It takes strength to compete. If companies are not strong, they are bound to fail. Strength cannot be bought; one must become strong. A well-known and well-regarded brand helps to make a company strong. Internal branding—especially in the service industries—is the essential underpinning of successful brands that have longevity, great competitive strength, and high financial value. Driven by a shared, authentic corporate culture and guided by a convincing, dedicated top management, employees will build brand value with all their actions and interactions, empowering the brand every day.

Because of this belief, Wolfgang Giehl was co-author of the first book on this topic, Focus Internal Branding, in Germany in 2004. The book attracted the interest of William Rodgers, who recognized potential in a fusion of European and American brand knowledge. We thank Will for his initiative in kicking off the translation and update of this book. We also owe him a debt for bringing Joe LePla into the authors’ team, giving us the rewarding experience of co-writing from opposite sides of the globe. All of us are deeply saddened that Will didn’t see the finished collaborated work; William Rodgers died in March 2009 at only 64 years old.

Create A Brand That Inspires: How to Sell, Organize, and Sustain Internal Branding—A Best Practice Study was developed into a completely new manuscript and structured according to the three core challenges for brand management: selling the brand internally to senior management, organizing the brand on all management levels, and living the brand within each company’s community. This makes this study a rewarding read not just for managers but also for executives and team leaders. We’ve provided up-to-date case studies and practical information regarding how to develop a successful internal branding initiative.

We never cease to learn, especially from our customers, among whom we also include our students. We would like to thank them for keeping this topic alive and for their continued pronounced interest. We also appreciate the contributions of the Advanced Learning Institute (Chicago, IL), which has offered a series of 2-day seminars providing case examples of organizations in various stages of internal branding. We were avid students ourselves, listening to presentations by practitioners from such companies as Nationwide Insurance, IBM, and Boeing in recent sessions.

We also wish to thank Lynn Parker and Beth Woolley for editing and proofing; Jen Travis, Lynn Parker, Briana Marrah, and Beth Woolley for seminal work around the online brand experience, social branding, and branding and brand communities; Beth Woolley for the brand relationship model diagram; and Bob Zammit for his help as an editor, as a style authority, and with word spackle. Finally, we’d like to thank Rachel Sabre Olmsted for keeping things on track and expending the tremendous energy necessary to pull all of the legal reviews and permissions together to make this study printable.

Internal branding is a relatively new field with not much written about how it really works. There remain friendly debates about even its dimensions and definition. Although we’ve gained more understanding of internal branding mechanics, one thing is certainly true: Only by tasting can you know a flavor. There always remains what we call the secret of your brand. That certain magic one can’t describe; one has to live it. We hope our readers will find success with their internal branding endeavors.

Wolfgang Giehl                                                             F. Joseph LePla

Bonn, Germany                                            Seattle / Washington, USA

Introduction

Internal Branding’s Evolution

The practice of internal branding is not as new as it seems. The United States Marine Corps (established in 1775) has a distinctive brand that causes its troops to act differently than the regular US Army, and that distinction is recognized by friends and foes alike. The product of the US Marines is a result of extensive troop training on how to consistently live the brand. Other examples of internal branding from the last century include Texaco’s brand service and dress code, which were tied to an advertising campaign that said, You can trust your car to the man who wears the star; IBM’s branding of its computer service people (blue suits, white shirts); and GM’s Mr. Goodwrench quality program. Disney may have been one of the first corporations to embark on a large-scale internal branding effort with its original Disneyland theme park, and Mayo Clinic set its brand strategy of physician collaboration to find answers in the first decade of the last century.

So why did internal branding only recently become popular as a term and as an area garnering greater attention? First, the term brand only became popular in the mid-1900s for packaged consumer goods like Jell-O or Tide. The brand manager at Procter and Gamble, General Mills, or Quaker Oats at that time was really a marketer. The brand manager’s job focused on visual brand identity and sales.

Now people believe that brand is applicable to most industries. Internal branding has been used by organizations that range from restaurants to government agencies and from exclusive hotels to banks and health care providers. Health care, particularly in its completely privatized incarnation in the United States, relies on the personal relationships between patient, physician, and health care staff. Therefore it is one of the industries at the forefront of internal branding innovation with lessons that can be applied to both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) industries.

Even the concept of what can be a brand has stretched to include movie stars, countries, nonprofits, and nongovernmental organizations. Still, many companies think only in terms of visual branding, messaging, and advertising and not in terms of how they are delivering the brand through their interactions.

The concept of integrated branding, introduced in the early 1990s, describes the process of aligning company structure, corporate culture, business strategy, employee actions, visual brand, and communications to create compelling customer experiences. Internal branding activities are the actions an organization undertakes to create this alignment.

Internal branding integrates strategic, tactical and staff decision making,

external sales, marketing, and social networking with

an organization’s core value.

Internal branding fuels revenue growth and profitability through its positive impact on both the customer and employee experience through:

Customers

• A service or product price premium

• Developing strong brand communities

• More distinctive product or service offerings

• Favorable word-of-mouth recommendations

• Greater customer loyalty

Employees

• Higher employee morale and engagement

• Ability to hire better candidates at lower costs

• Improved job acceptance-versus-offers

• Reduced employee turnover

• Reduced worker’s compensation costs

• Reduced sick days

Finally, with the rise of social networks and communities, the world has evolved to a point that the object of internal branding is not a unidirectional customer experience but a conversation that results in shared brand building. Whether you manage a global, national, or even local brand in this new social world, helping the chief executive officer (CEO), managers, and employees express your brand and participate in your brand community have become the keys to success. Because employees play an integral role in online communities, this change increases the need for strong internal branding to equip your CEO, managers, and employees to live the corporate culture and explain the brand’s promise.

Section I

Selling Internal Branding to Your Organization

Chapter 1

Branding Your Organization in an

Online World

Internal branding is the process of aligning culture, infrastructure, leadership, and metrics. It empowers employees to live the brand through how they do their jobs, their internal and customer interactions, and personal expression.

Perhaps the world is getting smaller, but its impact on each of us is anything but small. Sometime around the end of the twentieth century, we gained the ability to instantly communicate with people anywhere in the world, and they with us. Through the web, people are now able to have relationships with anyone else who is plugged in from Surinam to Sri Lanka. This single change is having a greater impact on how organizations brand themselves than has anything else that has occurred in the last hundred years.

Where communications, such as advertising and public relations, used to be enough to build brand preference, these channels have been all but lost in the fire hose of information we experience each day. A weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person in 17th century England would have encountered in an entire lifetime.i And now, the web has libraries of data available at our fingertips.

The Need for New Brand Constructs

By embracing this worldwide network of websites, blogs, and social networking sites, we have tapped into a new world in which brand identification turns into helping customers build their identities and brand experiences are seen as part of more encompassing brand community. We need to replace our old branding constructs with principles that take these changes into account. The new reality is that successful brands will be based more on individual employee expression and online group conversations that companies have little or no control over.

What does this mean for managing branded customer experiences? We need new ways of thinking that allow employees to more authentically connect with customers. What does this mean for branding your organization?